Splitting up your army between chapters is actually a great mechanic (when done properly)

[Nauriam]

Unless I'm forgetting something, Radiant Dawn is the only mainline game that really messed around with splitting up your army in a significant way, and from what I know some people love it and some people hate it. No matter what, there are definitely some issues with the system as it exists in RD.

That being said, I think that forcibly splitting up your army is an incredible mechanic and I think it should be used more, especially as the games are trending towards having a large cast of memorable and interesting characters with lots to say and do, as opposed to a large cast of background characters like Shadow Dragon has.

The "good" example I have of splitting up your army is Vestaria Saga - especially the second one. It does a few things with splitting up your army that really highlight the possibilities that this mechanic has.

So first let's talk about the good. First off, VS1 has a few sections along the way where your army is split up. And I want to be clear, this is not talking about split up in different sections of the map (although that is done really well in that game too), but rather certain maps have a section of your playable units where other maps have other sections. This is done near the end of VS1 when you have amassed a really large roster, and the splitting up of your army between maps gives the player a chance to use all of the units in the game without bogging down the gameplay by having too many units on the map. Both armies come back together on the final map, and it definitely is too many units to be fun anymore. In VS1 the maps choose for you who will be going to each map, so each map has a curated roster with certain units uniquely capable to handle certain objectives. Knowing that certain units will be at certain objectives can allow for more imaginative and unique map designs and objectives IMO. I think splitting up your army is better to be done late, as fighting in different battles/areas of the same battle adds to scale of the rising action, and it lets you utilize more of a large cast at the end of the game, rather than less like RD did.
VS2 splits armies up much more, and probably does it better too. VS2 utilizes the forced split, but also has a few times where you need to choose who's going to what map. On a blind playthrough I didn't feel like I needed to look up who would be good for either map, I just made educated guesses and the feeling of having a corp of units work well together that you yourself chose is very satisfying. In these games there is the equivalent of bond supports, and almost always units are always with their bond support partners which heightens the usefulness of supports without having a million supports between the characters, or making them too powerful because of how hard they are to get. If you had a huge roster and low deployment slots, bond supports would most likely have a lesser value, because deploying a not as good unit is a cost you're paying just to have a support. As someone who generally likes to level everyone equally, and see what all units have to offer, I found that the splitting up of armies was perfect for my playstyle, and I was able to use much more units than I would otherwise. It helps that seemingly less good units in that game tend to have a niche or skill they gain at a higher level that keeps all the units feeling unique and useful all the way until the end. I think splitting up the army works really well narratively and in the gameplay as long as the systems in the game compliment it.

Let's talk about the bad really quick. First, splitting up the army is really risky with perma-death because if a map relies on a handful of units to do a specific job (like the prison map in VS1), and some of those units are dead or not recruited (because the sand map sucks), that makes those maps much harder, and potentially can soft-lock people. Vestaria Saga does not offer a solution to this, but a more mainline game would definitely need one. Another issue that VS has is it has unique conversations and events on maps that you can choose your units for, and it doesn't have a way to warn you ahead of time. So if you choose the wrong units for a map - sorry, you just lost that unique event. There is also a potential downside from the developer pov, and that's the fact that letting players use more of the characters in one playthrough lessens the replay value. For some players that is a downside too, but personally I like to play a game once and feel like I had the full experience. I don't want to have to play the whole game again to experience some units or mechanics I wasn't able to in my first playthrough.

TLDR: I think that splitting up the army promotes using the large interesting cast of characters you get in these games, and it can promote cool maps and mechanics that would otherwise be risky, as well as give the player a chance to use more characters in one playthrough.

I don't think I fully explained my feelings on this perfectly, but hopefully y'all get where I'm going with this. And of course this is just my opinion, so feel free to retort with your opinion if you feel differently.

Edited July 8 by Nauriam

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I agree, but think such an observation is of limited utility when talking about modern fire emblem. FE10 and FE11 are the last of their kind where units were just a portrait with some text-only support conversations. In modern Fire Emblem, roster sizes are dwindling despite the 2-3x increased development time, because a lot more goes into each unit. And even if the next Fire Emblem removed all the social sim elements, we probably won't see a game of Radiant Dawn Scale that includes a roster of 70 fully voiced characters. Not unless they charge 100 dollars to play all of it like with Fates. And with the social sim elements, forcibly splitting up the party might be a highly controversial design choice. I heard about them taking away your guys in Engage, and I didn't even play or watch the game so I know that got people riled up if I've been hearing about it repeatedly. Best design decision, worst design decision, etc. 

For someone's fan project, it's an excellent conversation to have however. Please do split up the party. And bring back Fatigue - it serves the same purpose of forcing the player to use more units. Also while we're at it, consider deployment limits of 5-8. Some of the most intense Player Phases I've had lasted like 30 minutes, that's really draining. Not every map needs to be 12 units versus 50+ enemies, design maps with some variety in scale

[OuendanCyrus]

I think a good compromise (which is admittedly more boring) is to have your forces split deployment spaces on a single, large map. I remember Thracia does this several times (?), but think a main force storming a fortress or a castle from the front gate, while one or two, smaller teams are deployed via a side entrance, or a secret, underground passageway leading to an empty storeroom, and they're used to sabotage the enemy defences, and maybe long-range units or siege equipment from the inside, giving your main force an easier time.

[Acacia Sgt]

3 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

And even if the next Fire Emblem removed all the social sim elements, we probably won't see a game of Radiant Dawn Scale that includes a roster of 70 fully voiced characters. Not unless they charge 100 dollars to play all of it like with Fates.

*Super Robot Wars has entered the chat*

3 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

And with the social sim elements, forcibly splitting up the party might be a highly controversial design choice.

See above.

Well, granted, SRW doesn't have stuff like Support Conversations (in the sense of having optional dialogue to unlock). Or Permadeath. And it's Automatic-Recruits vs. Optional-Recruits ratio is closer to 95-5 or so on average. So everything is mandatory dialogue thus it's much more rigid. Every party split is set, with only usually the main protagonist choosing which group to go with.

---

Anyway, I personally agree that party splits is something FE should do more often. Then again, I may be biased due to SRW... so yeah.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

4 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

we probably won't see a game of Radiant Dawn Scale that includes a roster of 70 fully voiced characters. Not unless they charge 100 dollars to play all of it like with Fates.

Monkey's Paw curls

You can get over 70 units: 40 come in the first generation, 20 join as hyper-aged child units, and 10 more come by breeding the aforementioned two groups together. Also the 71st unit is a totally-original DLC-exclusive named "Anna".

6 hours ago, Nauriam said:

Let's talk about the bad really quick. First, splitting up the army is really risky with perma-death because if a map relies on a handful of units to do a specific job (like the prison map in VS1), and some of those units are dead or not recruited (because the sand map sucks), that makes those maps much harder, and potentially can soft-lock people.

Ambitious idea: what if you could get a "Game Over" on one route, but keep playing the other? Lady Artemis keeps fighting, even though Lord Zebulon has died. Or vice versa. This could lead into various different "bad endings", where you complete the campaign, but fail to totally defeat the antagonists and achieve your goals.

More reasonable answer: just give the player access to whoever they need to clear a map. This can be done by A) making certain non-Lords Game Over conditions, a la Sothe and Volug in RD Part I; B) giving a new auto-recruit, or optional recruit, who is particularly useful for the map at hand; or C) going full DSFE and adding a bunch of generics to the player's ranks, if too many people die.

Anyway, uh... army splitting good. The Valentia games kinda do it, too - although in the remakes, it's only Kliff and Faye who can really be in one army or the other. Would've been neat if, alongside the "Merchant", you had a "Human Trafficker" who could bring someone to the other side. Then again, if Clive goes to Celica's side, then Alm's story stops making sense, so its application would have to be very limited.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

4 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Anyway, uh... army splitting good. The Valentia games kinda do it, too - although in the remakes, it's only Kliff and Faye who can really be in one army or the other. Would've been neat if, alongside the "Merchant", you had a "Human Trafficker" who could bring someone to the other side. Then again, if Clive goes to Celica's side, then Alm's story stops making sense, so its application would have to be very limited.

rub a dub dub, Python has joined the club. Never mind why he was discharged from duty. You know I bet Sonya would have a place on Alm's team. Or any female mage with their base AS. But I'm guessing Mae wouldn't leave her BFF. I've heard talk about how Mage!Faye is secretly good, but untenable since it comes at the direct cost of Cleric!Faye

[lenticular]

For me, it comes down to how well the split is telegraphed. If the player knows in advance that their team is going to be broken up at some point and can plan accordingly, then I think it's fun and interesting. If it just comes completely out of nowhere then it has the potential to create some real "feels bad" moments. Part of the point of RPGs is putting together a party, choosing character builds, deciding how to allocate resources, and generally planning for the future. If you plan around something and the game just says "nope" and takes it away from you then all that does is tells you, the player, that you shouldn't have bothered to engage with those systems in the first place.

[Nauriam]

15 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I agree, but think such an observation is of limited utility when talking about modern fire emblem. FE10 and FE11 are the last of their kind where units were just a portrait with some text-only support conversations. In modern Fire Emblem, roster sizes are dwindling despite the 2-3x increased development time, because a lot more goes into each unit. And even if the next Fire Emblem removed all the social sim elements, we probably won't see a game of Radiant Dawn Scale that includes a roster of 70 fully voiced characters. Not unless they charge 100 dollars to play all of it like with Fates. And with the social sim elements, forcibly splitting up the party might be a highly controversial design choice

That's a fair point tbh. I wish IS would stop heading in that direction but I think if they made a game tailored to my interests they would probably lose a lot of money.

Spoiler

 

12 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

*Super Robot Wars has entered the chat*

I'll have to check that game out. Sounds like it might be up my alley

10 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Monkey's Paw curls

You can get over 70 units: 40 come in the first generation, 20 join as hyper-aged child units, and 10 more come by breeding the aforementioned two groups together. Also the 71st unit is a totally-original DLC-exclusive named "Anna"

Just as Kaga intended. Can't wait for Vestaria Saga 3 when this is the case

10 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Ambitious idea: what if you could get a "Game Over" on one route, but keep playing the other? Lady Artemis keeps fighting, even though Lord Zebulon has died. Or vice versa. This could lead into various different "bad endings", where you complete the campaign, but fail to totally defeat the antagonists and achieve your goals.

This is actually a really good idea. And I think in the case of VS1 it would have worked well. I'll put my analysis in a spoiler in case anyone wants to avoid spoilers.

Spoiler

The route split has Zade going through his country and recapturing cities in the name of Athol, and Cyltan goes to a prison camp to get soldiers or something and then goes to kill an awakening dragon, only to join Zade halfway through the final battle. If Cyltan fails, Zade will have to liberate the country, and then go fight a dragon that is more awake than Cyltan had to fight. If Zade fails, he can be thrown in prison on the last chapter with the other unites that have to fight in that arena, and Cyltan's crew can liberate them from prison and get Zade to have his final showdown with the final boss. For that game especially, it would really help with the potential for soft-locking which I feel is pretty likely if you miss some characters that go to Cyltan's prison break chapter.

 

10 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

More reasonable answer: just give the player access to whoever they need to clear a map. This can be done by A) making certain non-Lords Game Over conditions, a la Sothe and Volug in RD Part I; B) giving a new auto-recruit, or optional recruit, who is particularly useful for the map at hand; or C) going full DSFE and adding a bunch of generics to the player's ranks, if too many people die

This is more what I was thinking would be the best solution. In VS2 there's a sort of capturing mechanic which makes it really easy to miss units, but also if you lose enough units you could make certain generics capturable just to make the game possible.

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

For me, it comes down to how well the split is telegraphed. If the player knows in advance that their team is going to be broken up at some point and can plan accordingly, then I think it's fun and interesting. If it just comes completely out of nowhere then it has the potential to create some real "feels bad" moments. Part of the point of RPGs is putting together a party, choosing character builds, deciding how to allocate resources, and generally planning for the future. If you plan around something and the game just says "nope" and takes it away from you then all that does is tells you, the player, that you shouldn't have bothered to engage with those systems in the first place

From the one playthrough I've had of it, I think VS2 did this really well. It always had a pop-up before a route split that gave just enough information to feel like you're being a real tactician. For instance, you might be told that your army is planning on defending a walled town, but you also have a group of units that need to attack a caravan. Given this information you can make an informed decision about who would be good in which scenario. And since the game is constantly putting your units in maps where everyone has an opportunity to contribute, it's very likely that all your units are somewhat equally prepared for the next battle (at least that's how I played it, and it felt really intuitive to me).

Edited July 9 by Nauriam

[Eltosian Kadath]

13 hours ago, Nauriam said:

First off, VS1 has a few sections along the way where your army is split up. And I want to be clear, this is not talking about split up in different sections of the map (although that is done really well in that game too), but rather certain maps have a section of your playable units where other maps have other sections.

This feels more like how Gaiden/Echoes has split armies more than like how Radiant Dawn allows you to split your armies, which do have rather different and distinct feels to them.

 

I am literally shocked that TearRing Saga hasn't been mentioned yet, as party splits are a BIG thing in that game. It has two lords, the more traditional Runan, and the pirate scoundrel Holmes who start with separate armies akin to Gaiden/Echoes, but both end up coming together at two points in the game after which you can split your forces between the two armies for the next section of the game (similar to Radiant Dawn) before both inevitably combine on the final map. Now this ends up having a lot of issues with unique conversations and events which leads to people looking up guides to make more informed decisions, and needing more than one play through to see them all, but I don't necessarily consider replay incentives and those elements of choice to necessarily be a bad thing, but definitely aren't everyone's cup of tea.

[Nauriam]

31 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

This feels more like how Gaiden/Echoes has split armies more than like how Radiant Dawn allows you to split your armies, which do have rather different and distinct feels to them

I don't think I described it well in the first place, but it feels a lot more like Radiant Dawn than Gaiden/Echoes. In Gaiden your armies are basically completely separate unit-wise except for the last map, aside from some of the Ram Village people (which I think recruiting for Celica is more of an easter egg than an intended choice the player is making). In VS1/2 it's more like you're all a part of the same army but sometimes you split into different sections like part 4 of Radiant Dawn. Even when you're not choosing which units go to which chapters, you still gain and lose units depending on the story at different sections like how RD does it.

36 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I am literally shocked that TearRing Saga hasn't been mentioned yet, as party splits are a BIG thing in that game

Unfortunately I haven't played it yet, but it looks like I have something to look forward to!

[Acacia Sgt]

2 hours ago, Nauriam said:

I'll have to check that game out. Sounds like it might be up my alley

Oh, it's a series, not just one game. There's one on Steam, which should still be on sale. If you're really interested.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

A lot of things would be good, if they were done properly.

 

Grumpy Muppet-ishness aside, I think such a "mechanic" would be better used to facilitate the movement of an army - scouts moving out and returning with information about enemies or escorting characters, even potential recruits or the common lad contribuiting his coin to the wee princes coffers in exchange fro safe travel with an army, characters like Anna being out and about haggling with other merchants and bringing home good deals rather than being a tacky multiverse reference, soldiers moving out and about to secure supplies, equipment and somesuch, which could then be elaborated upon in a Chapter6x, 7x etc fashion - side missions if you will, baked into an overarching time system influencing the overall amount of ressources your march procures versus the preparedness of the enemy. Nothing against having the undeployed sidepieces gain a free level or two, to keep them competitive with the rest of the superstars.

 

Beyond that, if the game suddenly has me deploy all my units in a map for the purpose of unique split army shenaniganising then a lot of these unused scrubs will die, which technically I´m okay with, but also, not really. And frankly, I find it difficult to care for the ceaseless yapping of FE characters in any case, I´m sure as hell not going out of my way to know what woodcutter #3 has to say about a war he most certainly doesn´t have the understanding for, beyond the coin in his purse, worsened still if the supports conform to the "new" FE standard that is the endless attempts at making people shippable.

[Jotari]

I think, for all of Radiant Dawn's faults, the way it handled its army split was not one of them. At least, if we're talking about just the start of Part 4 split where you can send characters to one of the three armies.  The fact that the game is structured over all to have three(ish) different armies is another matter, but, if that's what we're talking about then Gaiden and Shadows of Valentia did it too. I assume from the way the OP described it that we're talking a situation where you have all of your units and then can determine where they go (though the nature of Radiant Dawn's three army structure probably does encourage you to just leave everyone where they are when the army split comes).

Radiant Dawn's only flaws there, from what I can see, is that it has so many characters forced to go on specific routes so plot scenes make sense, but that's more a consequence of just having more legitimately plot relevant characters than any other title (by a rather wide margin). The down side of that is a lack of alternate dialogue scenarios which is one of the nice quirks of such a mechanic. The only one that I can think of is that if you send Callill with the Hawk army she's there to comfort Amy, otherwise Ranulf has to do it. But, secret and alternate dialogue scenarios are a very sharp double edge sword, as you can also have a situation like Tear Ring Saga, where you can miss out on what feels like half the characters in the game by not being psychic (ie having a guide) when it comes to determining who goes where.

I think if any game in the series should have had this mechanic, it's definitely Sacred Stones. Others might disagree, and I grant it does lend some nuance to Lyon, but having to choose between Eirika and Ephraim instead of experiencing both their stories still feels like a cuck move to me. Splitting up the army and deciding which of the characters from the first act of the game go with Eirika and which go with Ephraim could have been a really fun set of decisions.

[Seafarer]

On 7/10/2024 at 2:51 PM, Jotari said:

But, secret and alternate dialogue scenarios are a very sharp double edge sword, as you can also have a situation like Tear Ring Saga, where you can miss out on what feels like half the characters in the game by not being psychic (ie having a guide) when it comes to determining who goes where.

Isn't it only 3 of them? There are a bunch of others that you miss by not triggering the Narcus event in C3, but as far as strictly requiring specific units in specific armies goes, it's just Lina, Renee and Hagar, two of whom are awful. I mean, unless you want to count Letena, I guess, but that's a whole new level of obtuse (and the game gives you Rebecca if you fail the pre-C25 conditions for Letena).

Anyway, as a big fan of CoY, I pretty much agree with the thesis of this thread. I'm happy to hear that it comes back to some extent in Vestaria, too.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Seafarer said:

Isn't it only 3 of them? There are a bunch of others that you miss by not triggering the Narcus event in C3, but as far as strictly requiring specific units in specific armies goes, it's just Lina, Renee and Hagar, two of whom are awful. I mean, unless you want to count Letena, I guess, but that's a whole new level of obtuse (and the game gives you Rebecca if you fail the pre-C25 conditions for Letena).

Anyway, as a big fan of CoY, I pretty much agree with the thesis of this thread. I'm happy to hear that it comes back to some extent in Vestaria, too.

I missed the second selection of four units because I didn't have anyone from Welt so they thought Holmes and co were pirates. Which I actually would have been okay with if you could fix it later, but they just arbitrarily prevent you going back to Welt after the second army split (even though Holmes sails right passed it).

I also missed Plum's dancer promotion by sending her to Holmes. Other characters gift items based on where they are as well that can be missed. I'm not sure what they do with the thief lady stealing the resurrection stone if you send her with Runan so that's probably an alternate scenario too.

[Seafarer]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

I missed the second selection of four units because I didn't have anyone from Welt so they thought Holmes and co were pirates. Which I actually would have been okay with if you could fix it later, but they just arbitrarily prevent you going back to Welt after the second army split (even though Holmes sails right passed it).

I also missed Plum's dancer promotion by sending her to Holmes. Other characters gift items based on where they are as well that can be missed. I'm not sure what they do with the thief lady stealing the resurrection stone if you send her with Runan so that's probably an alternate scenario too.

Ah, you were talking about missable events in general. I thought that particular line ("miss out on... half the characters in the game") was just about recruitments (though good catch on the second Wellt pick that I somehow forgot about (maybe because it's so hard to miss lol)).